PUBLIC DOCUMENT.] (Appendix.) [NO. 6. 



E 528 

1 REPORT 

.U58 

^^Py ^ OF THE UNITED STATES 

PROYOST MARSHAL, 



OF RHODE ISLAND, 



WILLIAM E. HAMLIN, 



MADE TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR SPRAGUE, BY HIS REQUEST, 



ANI> BT HIM 



PRESENTED TO THE GENEEAL ASSEMBLY, 



JA-NUj^HY session, 1863. 



PROVIDENCE: 
ALFRED ANTHONY, PRINTER TO THE STATE. 

1863. 



This document is a copy of a Report made to the Provost Marshal 
General, of the War Department. 






REPORT 



UNITED STATES PROVOST MARSHAL. 



Provost Marshal's Office, | 
Providence, 17th January, 1863. ) 
To His Excellency » 

William Sprague : 

Sir : — I have tlie honor to acknowledge the receipt of your com- 
munication through the Adjutant General, requesting " a report of 
my doings in this department, with the plan of action and results ac- 
complished," 

Since my appointment on the 25th September last, I have endea- 
vored to faithiully discharge the duties of Provost Marshal, so as to 
meet with the expectations of the General Government, and at the 
same time, with as little embarrassment as possible to the civil tribu- 
nals ; to this end, all persons arrested for offences cognizable by the 
civil law, have been as speedily as practicable, turned over to the State 
or United States officers, to be tried by the common law. 

The military arrests have been mostly for desertions. Persons ar- 
rested for this cause, have been confined in the County Jail, until they 
could be forwarded to their regiments, which has been done, as fast 
as detachments of sufficient size could be collected, and suitable offi- 
cers detailed to take them in charge. By an arrangement, deserters 
are boarded in the County Jail at two dollars per week, a sum about 
equal to the expense of the Government rations. 

The duties devolving upon this office are various. They have in- 
cluded the arrest and confinement of deserters and stragglers, and the 



4 PUBLIC DOCUMENT. 

transportation of them to their respective regiments ; ferreting out cases 
of frauds upon the Government, and of enticing soldiers to desert, and 
holding them for trial in the civil courts ; giving certificates of identity 
and loyalty to our citizens, to enable them when at Washington to 
obtain passes to their friends within the lines of our army ; quelling 
disturbances in the various barracks of the city ; searching for Govern- 
ment property which has been embezzled or stolen, and the prosecu- 
tion of offenders ; correspondence with the Provost Marshals of other 
States for the return of deserters, and with commanders of regiments 
and batteries to obtain complete descriptive lists ; investigating the 
numerous cases of frauds, occasioned by the large bounties ; examin- 
ing into cases of more than one enlistment by the same person, to as- 
certain where he belongs ; embarking of regiments and of detach- 
ments for their destination ; and finally keeping a complete list of 
all deserters in this State, and of all the arrests made, with the dis- 
bursements of the rewards and expenses. 

I have had able assistants in the office and at the depot, on the ar- 
rival and departure of the trains, and elsewhere, to aid in carrying out 
my plans. 

I am greatly indebted to the Executive and military departments 
of this State, for the facilities which have been rendered ; without 
which it would have been unpossible to accomplish the original object 
of the Government. 

The prosecuting ofiicers of the General and State Governments, 
the Police, and the citizens of Rhode Island generally, have co- 
operated to aid me in the position which I hold ; for which I would 
express my most hearty thanks. 

The system adopted in this office has been, to obtain a full descrip- 
tive list of deserters from Rhode Island regiments from time to time, 
which are copied into a book made for the purpose, each regiment un- 
der its proper head. An alphabetical index is also kept of all desert- 
ers, with complete references for the proper page of the descriptive 
book, where a full description of the person is recorded, under the 
head of the reffiment to which he belongs. 

I also have a Journal, wherein is registered the date of arrest of 
each deserter ; by whom taken ; the name of the deserter ; the regi- 
ment to which he is attached ; the amount paid for reward and ex- 
penses ; the disposition made of him ; and general remarks. 

The bills are all made in duplicates, and are copied into a book, in 
the numerical order of the vouchers, with an index for reference. 



REPORT OF PROVOST MARSHAL. S 

A regular account is kept Avith each arrested deserter, of the 
amount paid on his account, and the lists sent to the regiments, to be 
deducted from their pay roll. In some instances where the parties 
have money, they have been required to pay the expenses of their ar- 
rest, an account of Avhich is kept at this office. 

The bounties which have been offered, have drawn to this State a 
swarm of worthless men not only from the large cities in this country, 
but from Europe, consequently inducing frauds on the part of run- 
ners and recruiting officers ; the enlistment of a less desirable class of 
persons ; while the more honest, have been defrauded ; and the par- 
ties have enlisted with the intentien of deserting. The result has 
been, that a large portion of the recent recruits have already deserted, 
or are waiting only for an opportunity to do so. 

The mode of appointing recruiting officers has been the cause of 
much trouble. Certain persons are appointed to recruit a ccmpany ; 
runners are designated from the large cities, who visit the emigrant 
vessels, and the haunts of vice and misery, and drag forth the scum of 
the place ; the lame and the halt are taken to the recruiting officers, 
who obtain transportation for a blank number of recruits, the officer 
fining the blank and the Government paying for the transportation. 
I have known fifty-seven persons to arrive on one train, and all but five 
refuse to enlist. The excuse has been, that the runner in New York 
has promised them a bounty in cash, as soon as they arrived, and they 
find that they have been imposed upon. The agent who brings them 
on, fulls back upon the runner, and between them, they lose both the 
transportation and the men. 

I have known more than one hundred men to arrive here in one 
day, who have thus been cheated, and have no money with which to 
return. In other cases, I have known the same parties to be trans- 
ported at the expense of the Government a number of times. 

I regret also to say, that in our own State such has been the rivalr}^ 
in the towns to obtain their quota, that the spirit of the bounty law has 
been violated by recruiting officers, changing the names of the towns 
where the recruit has enfisted, and from which he expected a weekly 
bounty for his tamily, to another town, where the bounty was paid in 
cash, and the town committee, the recruiting officers, and the run- 
ners, had taken the lion's share ; and when the soldier applied for the 
four dollars per week bounty, they discovered that they had been 
ti'ansferred to another town, where that bounty was paid in cash at 
the time of enlistment, and was chiefly consumed among the recruit- 



6 PUBLIC DOCUMENT. 

ing officers. Numerous families of soldiers noAv in the service of the 
country, have thus been swindled out of their weekly bounty, which 
they confidently expected at the time of enlistment. 

So many persons have been concerned in enlisting men at the same 
office, that it is impossible to detect the perpetrators of this high- 
handed fraud. 

I had occasion to examine into the case of twenty men of the 12th 
Rhode Island regiment, pi-evious to their departure from this city, 
and found that all of them had been enlisted in the city of Provi- 
dence ; but by their recruiting papers they had been transferred to 
towns in the state, of which they knew nothing whatever ; and when 
they applied for the four dollars per week bounty for their families, 
they ascertained that it could not be paid, as they had enlisted for an- 
other town. 

Four of the above named persons were detained by Col. Brown for 
examination, and before I had been able to do any thing for them, 
they all deserted to Boston, again enlisted, and again deserted with 
two hundred dollars of the Massachusetts bounty money, which is the 
last that I have heard of them. 

The bounty frauds have been so various, extensive and complicat- 
ed, that it has been impossible to unravel them. 

The same may be said of enlistments and desertions. Organized 
bodies in the neighboring cities, have pre-arranged for both enlist- 
ments and desertions, and until their movements were discovered, 
have been carried on to a considerable extent. 

I have made arrests of a number of recruiting officers, who have 
swindled the Government and the soldiers of large sums of money ; 
an examination into a few cases where authority had been given to 
recruit, reveals the fact, that the Government has provided transpor- 
tation from Philadelphia, New York and Boston, for several hundred 
persons, while on the average only ten per cent, of the number trans- 
ported for the purpose, are now to be found with their regiments. 

I have also found on the persons arrested, receipts signed by the re- 
cruits, assigning a portion of their bounty to the recruiting officer, the 
amounts varying from fifty dollars to one hundred and fifty dollars. 

I have also found in one instance, upon one officer, sixteen printed 
blank receipts already signed by men who have enlisted in the 2d R. 
I. Cavalry. The officer was to fill out the blanks dividing the State 
bounty of three hundred dollars, thus making the check one hundred 
and fifty dollars. When the State bounty was paid, the officer was 



REPORT OF PROVOST MARSHAL. \ \ 

to pay the soldier in cash one hundred and fifty dollars, and take the 
State check for three hundred dollars ; and Avhen the State check was 
cashed, the officer was to give a pass to the soldier, with an opportu- 
nity and an understanding that he was to desert. I have the testi- 
mony of two of the parties concerned in this fraud. 

Five hundred dollars of the money for the expenses of this office 
have been advanced to the United States Government by the Quar- 
termaster General of this State, by direction of Your Excellency, and 
the balance $2,688 32, has been advanced by the Globe Bank, Provi- 
dence. This covers all the expenses, including rewards for deserters, 
&c., except for my own services. Of the above amount, about 
$1,400 have been charged back to deserters, and will be sent to their 
respective regiments, to be deducted from their pay roll. The value 
of Government property captured, which had been embezzled or 
stolen, will, with the amount received from deserters, reduce the actual 
working expenses of this department to the Government, to a compar- 
tively small sum, while the advantage which has resulted, is daily 
made more evident. 

I estimate that there are now about eight hundred deserters from 
Rhode Island regiments. Some of the regiment reports are not com- 
plete. We have descriptive lists of nearly eight hundred upon the 
books. 

I have arrested and returned to their regiments in this, and other 
States, between eight hundred and nine hundred deserters and strag- 
glers ; of this number, three hundred and ninety-three are registered 
as deserters. 

The economy of securing deserters in place of new recruits, must 
be manifest, when we consider that the expense to the Government of 
each new recruit, before he is sent into the field, including the Gov- 
ernment bounty, is about sixty dollars. 

The effect of this department is not only to arrest deserters, but to 
prevent desertions. 

I have endeavored to give you an outline of the workings of this 
department for a period of nearly four months, which is herewith 
submitted, with my thanks, for the interest which you have manifest- 
ed, and the support which it has received from your hands. 
Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

WM. E. HAMLIN, 
U. S. Provost Marshal for Rhode Island. 






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